Turks

People identified as ethnic Turks comprise 80 to 88 percent of
Turkey's population. The Turks include a number of regional groups who
differ from one another in dialect, dress, customs, and outlook. In most
cases, these differences reflect variations in historical and
environmental circumstances. In general, regional differences are
beginning to decrease while differences arising from urbanization and
social class stratification are assuming greater importance. The three
most important Turkish groups are the Anatolian Turks, the Rumelian
Turks (primarily immigrants from former Ottoman territories in the
Balkans and their descendants), and the Central Asian Turks
(Turkic-speaking immigrants from the Caucasus region, southern Russia,
and Central Asia and their descendants).

The Anatolian Turks historically lived on the central Anatolian
Plateau in isolated villages and small towns. Following the
implementation of the Ottoman Land Code in the late 1860s, rural
Anatolian Turks were likely to own their own land, cultivating wheat and
other cereal grains in addition to herding sheep and goats. During the
early republican period, the Anatolian Turks' reputation for physical
toughness and obstinate patience was applied to all Turks, and the
Anatolians' culture, albeit as interpreted by the urban elite, became
part of the foundation of Turkish nationalism. The Turks who lived in
the coastal stretches along the Black, Aegean, and Mediterranean seas
also were considered Anatolian Turks, although the more diverse and
agreeable climate of the coastal areas encouraged the evolution of
cultural patterns different from those predominating on the interior
plateau. However, extensive industrialization, urbanization, and
village-to-city migration since 1960 have tended to minimize regional
differences, creating instead new class and occupational distinctions.
Despite the social and economic changes, transhumance has remained an
efficient means of raising livestock on the Anatolian Plateau, and as
many as 1 million Turks were seminomadic herders of sheep and goats in
the early 1990s. Included in this population were an estimated 600,000 Yürüks,
Turks of Asiatic origin, whom the government has not officially
recognized as a separate group.

The Rumelian Turks are descended from Turks who settled in the
Balkans when, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, that
region of southern Europe was part of the Ottoman Empire. They were
stranded when imperial territories began acquiring national independence
in the nineteenth century (see Migration, this ch.). Most of the
Rumelian Turks resettled in Turkey between 1878 and 1924. In rural
areas, Rumelian Turks tended to become farmers or artisans in the
coastal villages evacuated by Greeks during the 1920s population
exchanges. Rumelian Turks also settled in urban centers, especially
Edirne, Tekirdag, Kirklareli, Nigde, Bilecik, and Bursa.

The Central Asian Turks include Crimean Tartars and Turkomans. They
live in scattered communities in various parts of the country; for
example, there are several Crimean Tartar villages in the vicinity of
Eskisehir. In 1945 an estimated 10,000 people spoke Tartar as their
first language; since then several thousand additional Crimean Tartars
have resettled in Turkey. The Turkomans, who speak a Turkic dialect
distinct from Anatolian Turkish, have lived in eastern Turkey for
several centuries. Historically, Turkomans were organized by tribe;
tribal affiliations still retained importance for some Turkomans in
1995. Since the establishment of the republic, no reliable estimate of
the number of Turkomans has been published. Traditionally, Turkomans
have been Shia Muslims; scholars believe that most still adhere to Shia
Islam.